Gateways to World Literature (Coursework Sample)

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Introduction
Gateways to World Literature is an interesting collection of a range of the world's great literature in two sets that as the subtitle suggests links the past and present (The Ancient World Through The Early Modern Period). The anthology is categorized into three parts based on the timeframe under which the works were done. The three parts are The Ancient World, The medieval era and the early modern period. The ancient world literature includes The Epic Of Gilgamesh (c. 1200 B.C.E.), (trans. Stephanie Dalley), The Song Of Songs (1st millennium B.C.E.), (trans. Jerusalem Bible translation) and Homer (8th century B.C.E.) among others. The medieval era literature includes The Poetry of the Tang Dynasty such as Wang Wei (701-761). "The Thousand And One Nights" is also under the medieval era done between the 9th – 14th century. The Early modern period includes such works as Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375), Francis Petrarch (1304-1374), Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592), Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra (1547–1616), and William Shakespeare (1564–1616) (Damrosh, 5).
Gateways to World Literature are indeed a gateway of literary and cultural contexts in regard to timeframe, and region (East and West). The anthology constitutes lyric and epic poetry, prose narrative, and drama with many influential works of significant authors than span across the different region and time period. The collection has an engaging introduction, maps, pronunciation guides, and scholarly annotations developed by a notable editorial team to provide the reader with an opulence of materials that support the collections (Damrosh 6).
The Thousand and One Nights Overview (9th – 14th century)
This is a collection of tales from West and South Asia region. The works originality can be traced in the medieval Persian, Arabic, Egyptian, Indian, and Mesopotamian literature. The selected tales in Gateways to World Literature, (Volume 1) includes;
* The Story of King Shahrayar and Shahrazad (trans. Husain Haddawy).
* His Vizier’s Daughter
* The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey
* The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife
* The Tale of the Porter and the Young Girls (trans. Powys Mathers after J.C. Mardrus)
[The Tale of Zubaidah, the First of the Girls]
from The Tale of Sympathy the Learned  (trans. Powys Mathers after J.C. Mardrus)
* and Conclusion (trans. Powys Mathers after J.C. Mardrus) (Damrosh 195)
Main characters
One notable element in this edition of the 1001 Nights is the prologue story of the Shahryār, a ruler, and his wife Scheherazade and the framing mechanism incorporated throughout the other tales of the nights. The other stories are a based on this original tale although few of them have been created within other tales while others are self representative. Some of the editions of ‘the 1001 Nights’ contain only fewer than 1000 nights, while others comprise 1,001 or more nights (Damrosh 197).
The intricate intertwined stories of "The Thousand and One Nights" as mentioned earlier are framed from the tale of a cynical ruler named Shahryar, whose frustration in women causes him to marry a new wife every other night only to kill her the following day. The vizier's daughter, is a story of the clever Scheherazade was determined to stop the murderous habit of Shahryar by planning an artful ruse (Damrosh 198). Scheherazade kept narrating a suspicious tale that was filled with suspense and each day, she promised to conclude it the following morning. The narrative device of delaying horrid events by means of stirring the curiosity of a powerful personality is a constant element that has been used in all the stories in "The Thousand and One Nights”. The other stories including ‘The Tale of the Porter and the Young Girls of Baghdad’ (trans. Powys Mathers after J.C. Mardrus) incorporates this feature. We find that the curiosity of the girls compelled them to save their lives by satisfying the curiosity of the hosts (Damrosh 199).
Themes
David Damrosh a Professor of Comparative Literature in Harvard university points out that the fairy tales in 1001 Nights thematical classifications are: quest stories, powerful demonic stories, talisman stories where a magic subject provides protection and guidance to the hero, transformational tales, and powerful tales of demons that are under control (Damrosh 205).
Features of Thousand and One Nights
Suspense
Scheherazade kept narrating a suspenseful tale to her husband, Sultan Shahryar, a tale she always promised to complete the following morning. This was in an attempt to put to an end the murderous acts of the ruler. Suspense is a narrative device that has been used in all the other subsequent tales in the 1001 nights. It is evident that the tales of Scheherazade inspired a sense of astonishment and wonder in the public. This feature is also incorporated by the storytellers themselves who ensure that their fictious audience is kept in typical amazement undeniably to the point of demanding for more stories (Damrosh 105). Thus, the conclusion is that the representative story of the Sultan Shahryar and his wife Scheherazade generates a parallel sequence of interpolated stories that are narrated to shed off the disaster.
Fiction
In this vast collection of the 1001 nights, only one tale is based on a true story. The fairy is a Persian story of ‘Ahmed and Peribanu’, although the story also incorporates some constant appearances of what is termed in Arabic as ifrīt, and translated as ‘demon’ in English. Mia Gerhardt in his analysis distinguishes the elf tales that are from the Persian origin with the fairy Egyptian tales. The Persian stories are of the viewpoint that a supernatural being acting autonomously controls the events while the Egyptian stories are of the opinion that those beings are subject to the possessor of a magical powers (Damrosh 233).
Critical Analysis of the Tales
Historical context of ‘The Thousand and One Nights’
The setting can be Syria or Egypt both of where the latest transcript dates back to the 14th century. The pre-Islamic period and Egyptian are the two sources that can be linked to the tales of this narrative. Based on many of the stories from the 1001 nights collection, some literature commentators have distinguished Scheherazade as the Islam voice who convinces King Shahrayar using the art of storytelling (Damrosh 205). The point that Scheherazade want to put across to the king is that the principle of reciprocity (i.e. "an eye for an eye" as the Quran supports) is a better and more just method of punishment. Typically, this could be the interpretation of the story that Scheherazade kept narrating to the king in order to make him have a hint of his own murderous actions. The threads of pre-Islamic influences prove that a single definitive author or source did not create the stories (Damrosh 65).
Some of the pre-Islamic historical context that can be used to support this argument includes; 1) animal fables (constituting the tales ) were translated into Persian and Medes before the Islamic period . 2) Many of the character’s names are Persian, and not Islamic. 3) The setting of the stories is both in and out of the Middle East, e.g. China (Aladdin), Cairo (Egypt), Samarkand (Uzbekistan), and India (in the prologue). The Thousand and One Nights (formerly referred as Arabian Nights), was first introduced in Europe in the 18th century and the first scholarly version of the works was publishers in 1984. It is interesting that Egypt banned the text in 1989 because it was said to be immoral. The Arabic literary scholars on the other hand have never considered the text to be a serious text that would require scholarly publication
(Damrosh 190).
Structure of the 1001 Nights Stories
All the stories of the nights except one are frame tales. Frame tales are interrelated/ interlocking stories that are usually fictional meant to edify and entertain its audience. Characters in most of the stories in the 1001 nights are seen to be using oral tradition to narrate the tales that is in the narrative. The framing structure of "The Thousand and One Nights" helps the speakers of the story to recollect the narrative in an easy way and allows them to add other narratives and elaborate the existing ones. That explains why the collection of "The Thousand and One Nights" has managed to survive over the centuries with many attributed authors. The structure of the frame tales in the 1001 nights leads to the conclusion that the structure creates the setting and motivation of all the other stories in the anthology (Damrosh 204). The use of frames tales generates order from chaos, or rather from the chaotic context of the story.
Literal and the Metaphorical Context
The differences that are depicted between the readers who read fictional tales for the purpose of literary pleasure and those who read them for the purpose of literary profits could be one of the reasons why Egypt banned 1001 nights in the country in 1989 (Damrosh 104). Possibly the commentators of the text in the country, never discovered the literary profits of the text. First, reluctant audience or readers are stricken with lies, embellishments, and numerous distortions of truth that make up the fictional tales. The reason that made Egypt to oppose ‘the thousand and one nights’ and order for its subsequent ban was because they feared that "true Islamic principles and beliefs" was under the ris...